Michele Bachmann

New York Times reporter Erik Eckholm (pictured), whose previous reporting betrays no conservative sympathies, listened to former presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday afternoon and winced at her attacks on President Obama. Thursday’s post for the paper’s “Caucus” blog, “Bachmann Assails Obama Before Conservatives.”

The Times is particularly sensitive to people accusing Obama of “apologizing for America” overseas. Public Editor Arthur Brisbane got huffy and pedantic in defense of the president back in January:

Despite Democrats controlling the White House and the Senate, Obama-loving media members love to blame gridlock in Washington on Republicans.

Doing his part Sunday was Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer who asked guest Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), "Has the Tea Party made compromise a dirty word, and is that why Congress can't seem to get anything done?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Appearing as a guest on Thursday's Late Show with David Letterman on CBS, Arizona Senator John McCain complained about ABC's George Stephanopoulos because the ABC host asked GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney if states have the constitutional power to ban contraceptives.

What does Planned Parenthood have to do for a mention on the network news? The group provides services abhorred by much of the American population and it has been riddled with scandal recently. But according to the abortion group's latest figures, its intake of federal tax dollars up by more than a third, and that 90 percent of its government funding comes from federal money.

Sounds like a controversial story. Too bad ABC, CBS and NBC haven't been paying attention.

CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien has had a history of liberal bias – to a scale approaching activism – and she showed where her newest CNN show might be headed on Tuesday with a completely liberal double-standard in her interviews.

During the 7 a.m. hour of CNN's Starting Point, O'Brien hit GOP candidate Michele Bachmann from the left on homosexuality, but later teed up liberal "Occupy" protesters to defend their cause and claim to be "non-partisan." Bachmann blasted O'Brien's "gotcha" question and insisted that voters are focused on economic issues. [Video below the break.]

Reporting on the campaigns in Iowa on Friday's Early Show, Times political correspondent Jeff Zeleny belittled candidate Michele Bachmann as "a little bit combustible and volatile."

Zeleny added that "Anyone knows what she could do," in response to CBS anchor Jeff Glor's question about the potential for a candidate to do something before the Iowa Caucus to change the GOP race. [Video below the break.]

After presidential candidate Michele Bachmann referred to North Korea as “the Wal-Mart of missile delivery systems,” CNN correspondent Brian Todd hyped the possible political backlash she could suffer for using Wal-Mart’s name in such a manner.

The CNN headline blared “Bachmann Insults Wal-Mart” and Todd whacked the GOP candidate with a critical segment on her making an “odd Wal-Mart reference.”

CBS's Erica Hill invoked an infamous Christmas season villain on Wednesday's Early Show, stating that "[House] Republicans...risk looking like the Grinch here four days before Christmas" for their refusal to sign onto the Senate's proposed two-month extension of the payroll tax holiday. Hill made that claim during an interview of Rep. Michele Bachmann, and pressed her about the payroll tax issue.

The anchor brought on Rep. Bachmann to discuss her presidential campaign's swing through Iowa during the lead-up to that state's caucuses at the beginning of January. However, Hill devoted the first half of the segment to the dispute over extending the tax holiday, and led with a question that included her "Grinch" label:

On Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry led off an interview with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann by wondering if House Speaker John Boehner was a liar or just incompetent: "Did House Speaker John Boehner mislead the Senate into thinking this payroll tax extension was a done deal? Or has he lost all control of Republican Tea Party members of the House?" [Audio available here]

Bachmann pointed to the Democrats: "...there is a real lack of leadership in Washington, D.C. The President, unfortunately, has been awol in this process since early last summer, and now here we are....Harry Reid essentially threw a grenade over into the House and left, and said take it or leave it. So it was very difficult for John Boehner, because this was just a two-month temporary gimmick..." [View video after the jump]

As Congresswoman Michele Bachmann made the point on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that the national debt has increased dramatically under President Obama compared to under President Bush, host David Gregory interrupted and attempted to dismiss that fact: "Congresswoman, that just misstates the record....For accuracy, the debt exploded under the Bush administration." [Audio available here]

Bachmann tried to finish her point: "There's no comparison. We're talking-" But Gregory kept interrupting: "...the debt – wait a minute, Congresswoman." Bachmann replied: "David, let me just finish." Gregory claimed: "No, wait a minute. I just want to stop you for accuracy." [View video after the jump]

Just how much do the media want to prevent Newt Gingrich from becoming the Republican presidential nominee?

So much that despite their total disdain for Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), they'll even defend her from supposed sexist attacks by the former Speaker of the House (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's supposedly conservative host Joe Scarborough on Tuesday continued his months-long attack on the Republican presidential candidates.

After telling his Morning Joe viewers that he would consider voting for potential third party candidate Ron Paul if Newt Gingrich won the nomination, Scarborough said he could "in five minutes write a list of 200 Republican members of the House of Representatives" more qualified than "the presidential candidates that are running right now" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Yesterday, Anne Gearan at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, wrote what she called a "Fact Check" piece about a political promise. Really.

Two Republican presidential candidates, Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann, are both promising to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem if they should become the nation's next president. There's literally no way to "fact check" something that is only a promise, but Gearan wasted over 500 words pretending to do just that. She couldn't even buy a clue that her item's title ("FACT CHECK: Israel embassy promise may be empty") gives away the, uh, fact that it wasn't a "fact check" at all. Jim Taranto at the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web minced no words in critiquing AP's and Gearan's cluelessness (bolds are mine):

As NewsBusters has been reporting, America's supposedly impartial media have been gushing and fawning over President Obama's press conference retort to Republican accusations of his appeasement, "Ask Osama bin Laden."

Doing his part Thursday was CNN's John King who proudly declared on the program bearing his name, "Point, set, match Obama" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The GOP presidential candidates, at the upcoming ABC News debate in Iowa, should brace themselves to be splattered with tough questions from the left from moderator George Stephanopoulos. The good news for them is that most should be well-prepared for the left-leaning sliders, as many have already been subjected to Stephanopoulos’s liberal questioning on Good Morning America. In 20 interview segments this year with the GOP candidates, totaling nearly two hours (110 minutes), an MRC review has documented Stephanopoulos has consistently pressed his guests from the left. Of questions with an ideological bent 75 percent (36) were from the left with just 25 percent (12) of them coming from the right.  

When current GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich showed up on the January 18 edition of Good Morning America, Stephanopoulos prodded the former Speaker of the House if he was prepared to put 129 million Americans at “risk” with his opposition to Obamacare. (video after the jump)

Washington Post "On Faith" editor and religious agnostic Sally Quinn took time yesterday morning to hack out a blog post offending people of faith entitled, "What will God whisper in Herman Cain's ear next?":

In a glowing review of The Roots' new album "undun," Washington Post music critic Chris Richards lamented it was "too bad" that the band's choice of Fishbone's "Lyin' A** B*tch" to introduce Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann on the November 21 Late Night with Jimmy Fallon will likely be "the one song" that the band will "be remembered for" most in 2011.

"The band considered it a joke. Certain corners of the media considered it an outrage," Richards noted (emphasis mine):

The liberals on PBS's Inside Washington Friday were all giddy at the thought of Newt Gingrich as the Republican presidential nominee.

So sure this would be good news for the president he adores, syndicated columnist and PBS fixture Mark Shields said this would result in the "landslide reelection victory of Barack Obama" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

If you thought you'd heard the last of Jimmy Fallon's band and the case of the offensive song played on NBC's Late Night last week as Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann walked onto the stage, think again.

On Thursday, the bandleader responsible for the song choice was interviewed by Pitchfork, and he not surprisingly made some accusations of racism at "Tea Party extremists" (serious vulgarity warning):

Saturday's Fox News Watch gave attention to a recent study released by the Media Research Center - parent organization to NewsBusters - documenting that the broadcast network morning newscasts gave more friendly treatment to Democratic presidential candidates in 2007 as compared to the GOP presidential field in 2011.

As he introduced the segment, host Jon Scott noted that, not only were questions for Democratic guests posed from a liberal point of view much more often than from a conservative point of view in 2007, but that questions for Republican candidates in 2011 have also been posed from a liberal point of view much more often than from a conservative viewpoint. Scott:

It appears the folks at the National Organization for Women can't defend a conservative woman without attacking Rush Limbaugh.

As Big Hollywood reported Thursday evening, NOW President Terry O'Neill finally responded to the offensive song Jimmy Fallon's band played as Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) walked onto the set of NBC's Late Night Monday:

As NewsBusters reported Thursday, NBC apologized to Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) for the offensive song that was played as she walked onto the stage to be a guest on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Monday.

Unfortunately, as Bachmann told radio’s Steve Malzberg guest-hosting for Jeff Bolton on KLIF in Texas Friday, that apology came from a vice president of programming and not NBC’s president (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

On Tuesday's The View on ABC, as the group discussed GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann's appearance on Monday's Night's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on NBC, after playing a clip of the Minnesota Congresswoman and Fallon playing a comical game of word association, ABC co-host Whoopi Goldberg declared that "bonehead" is the word she would associate with Bachmann, while co-host Barbara Walters declined to say what word first comes to her mind.

NBC on Wednesday issued a formal apology to Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) for the offensive song that was played as she walked onto the stage to be Jimmy Fallon's guest Monday evening.

The issue was discussed in great detail on Thursday's Today show (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann demanded an apology from NBC Wednesday for the disgraceful song that was played while she was walking on stage to be a guest on that network's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Monday.

"This wouldn't be tolerated if this was Michelle Obama," Bachmann told Fox News's Bill Klemmer. "It shouldn't be tolerated if it's a conservative woman, either" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Was Brooke Baldwin's kid-glove treatment of candidate Jon Huntsman a harbinger of things to come in CNN's Tuesday night debate? The CNN host tossed the liberal media's favorite GOP candidate softball after softball in a Tuesday afternoon interview – while conservative candidate Michele Bachmann was asked Tuesday morning if she regretted running for president.

In an cushy interview during the 3 p.m. hour of Newsroom, Baldwin heaped praise on the Republican who supports same-sex civil unions and who ripped conservatives as "anti-science" for not believing in global warming. The CNN host fawned over Huntsman's "lovely" daughters and slobbered that "you seem pretty unflappable, and if I may, governor, downright nice." [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

As we get nearer to Election Day, Americans on both sides of the political aisle must be wondering if the media will have any limits concerning what is an acceptable attack on one of President Obama's opponents.

Consider that on NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, as Republican presidential candidate and sitting member of Congress Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) was introduced Monday, the band played a song called "Lyin' A-- B--ch" (videos follow with commentary):

CNN's Carol Costello asked Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on Tuesday if she "regretted" following God's "edict" to run for President. In an interview around the top of the 8 a.m. hour of American Morning, Costello had mentioned that Bachmann, in her new memoir "Core of Conviction," wrote that she had prayed to discern God's will before choosing to run for President.

"So I just wanted to ask you if you regretted following that edict," Costello pressed the candidate. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]